Real Meals

Okay, this is getting hard. I am BIG. And tired. And hungry. I'm also more and more excited to meet this little kicking fellow. I saw a picture of a baby the other day and thought "I want a baby... Oh, and I'm having one!!!" But being big, tired, and hungry, I haven't exactly been jumping out of bed to pack lunch salads, or grabbing my apron when I get home. Meals are more of a problem-solving exercise these days. The icing on the cake, literally: we threw me a birthday party last weekend (here I am watching as a guest prepares to top the cake with a wind-up penguin), and we're left with a house full of indulgent, ready-made treats.

So when I decided that I would poll all my pregnant friends about what they had eaten on a specific day, was I looking for company in my slipping eating habits? Inspiration to get back on track? I got both. I don't look as bad on paper as I feared. And I'm fascinated not only by what we all ate, which seems rather similar, really, but also how we describe it--the hints of pride and glimmers of guilt, the details we think are important, and the categories. Oh how I relate to the middle of the night hunger pangs, the lemonade obsession, and the carbs, carbs, carbs!

We're bombarded by "shoulds" and "don'ts," our bodies are telling us the darndest things, and we're all committed to doing the best by our babies that we can. On one busy weekday, here's how the chips fell:

What We Ate Last Monday

Zoe, 35 weeks pregnant, Brooklyn, NY, worked in publishing.

Breakfast: Tea with milk and sugar, big sweet roll from a Mexican bakery

Anonymous, 10 weeks pregnant, Brooklyn, NY, went to the doctor in the morning, then worked from home, which meant, because I felt SO sick, I spent a bunch of the day reading blogs in bed and answering important emails, and then a few minutes at my desk doing the least amount of work I could get away with. It was a bad day. In the evening, I collapsed on the couch and napped and whined while my hubby made dinner.

7:30 am: feeling nauseous beyond belief, I forced myself to down a small bowl of raisin bran with raspberries and whole milk, it was horrible. Too sick for my prenatal vitamins, got to those later in the day.